


all you got is your own two legs

by flyingthesky



Series: Kinktober But It's 2020 [1]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Bodyswap, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Kinktober 2020, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, Season/Series 02 Spoilers, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:42:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26759665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flyingthesky/pseuds/flyingthesky
Summary: “It's like that, the first few times.” Five's tone is unspeakably mild, and it still sounds wrong in Diego's voice. “Try not to go too far.”“How do I control it?” There's a certain amount of control involved in using his own powers, obviously, but they're also much more instinctual. Maybe that's because they'rehisand Five's aren't. “I didn't even mean to do that, I just—”“Wanted to be somewhere else? It's as simple as that.”
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy & Diego Hargreeves
Series: Kinktober But It's 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1949680
Comments: 7
Kudos: 81





	all you got is your own two legs

“That was,” Five says, in a tone that sounds all wrong in Diego’s voice, “not how I intended for this to go.”

“No shhhhhh,” Diego says, and stumbles backwards at the way the words sound in Five’s voice. “Oh, I hate that. Your balls haven’t even dropped, I can’t swear.”

“I’m several decades older than you, actually. Now shut up, I have to figure out how to reverse this.”

Five sits down, somehow looking elegant despite being in a completely different body. Diego hates that, because of _course_ Five can adjust to anything while Diego feels itchy and wrong in this body. He’s shorter, and even though his fingers itch for a knife, he’s aware that he won’t be able to control it the way he’s used to.

Something in him fizzles, and then he’s standing in the dingy kitchenette of Elliott’s apartment. He wobbles for a second and then falls backwards. Sitting on the linoleum floor, Diego blinks and looks across the apartment at the spot where he was standing only moments ago. Oh god. Somehow the thought he wouldn’t have his own powers did not follow all the way through to the obvious: he’s now in possession of _Five’s_ powers and he has no idea how to use them.

“It’s like that, the first few times.” Five’s tone is unspeakably mild, and it still sounds wrong in Diego’s voice. “Try not to go too far.”

“How do I control it?” There’s a certain amount of control involved in using his own powers, obviously, but they’re also much more instinctual. Maybe that’s because they’re _his_ and Five’s aren’t. “I didn’t even mean to do that, I just—”

“Wanted to be somewhere else? It’s as simple as that.” In the time they’ve been talking, Five has physically walked over to where Diego is. It costs Five something to do that, Diego thinks, even though on the surface Five appears as cool and collected as ever. Maybe that is the cost, in a way. “All of our powers work on something that’s instinctual to us. I always want to be somewhere else. You always want to change things. Allison wants to be heard. Klaus doesn’t want to be alone.”

“That’s bullshit.” Diego stands up, careful not to think about anything even remotely approaching a _want_. It’s harder than it sounds, especially when the entire world is off-kilter and all Diego wants is to be in his own body. “Explain Luther then. Or Ben.”

For a moment, Five doesn’t say anything. If they were both younger, Diego would say it’s because Five doesn’t know everything like he pretends to. Now, Diego realizes that Five is merely trying to translate a complex answer into words that mere mortals can understand. That’s still annoying, but it’s more charitable to Five. Time and distance have given Diego the space to understand that their dad fucked them all up and each of them dealt with it differently.

“They’re two sides of the same coin,” Five says finally. He leans against the counter, staring up Elliott’s weird coffee machine absently. “Luther wants to be symbolic, like Captain America, and being strong but not too weird is the best way to be the ‘face’ of the Umbrella Academy. Ben wanted to be unseen. His powers weren’t directly related to him the same way ours are.”

Diego looks up at Five wearing his face and squints, because it feels like there’s an answer to their situation in that. Five looks back at him, brow furrowed like this is the first time that Five has properly gotten a look at his new-old body. That’s a feeling Diego remembers. Five tumbled out of the wormhole, or whatever he’d say that was, and then he’d been exactly as Diego remembered him. They’d just buried their father, and it felt like some kind of cruel reckoning to be faced with the brother they all _thought_ was dead. The feeling of losing Ben came and went—they’d all been guilty of something there, even if it was mostly Luther’s fault—but the feeling of losing Five never went away if only because none of them knew what _happened_ to Five. None of them could explain away the disappearance in the same way they’d individually explained away the mistakes they made that led to Ben’s death.

Even though Five is wearing Diego’s body all wrong, he looks more at ease than Diego feels. That’s just because Five is always cool and collected in a way that Diego spent their entire childhood envying. It’s only in the last few months that Diego’s realized that Five acts that way as a defense mechanism. Where Diego deal with things by attacking, by lashing out, Five deals with them by pretending he’s above them.

“Perhaps wanting to be somewhere else is what got us into this mess.” Five straightens and walks back to the living room. Diego starts to follow and Five waves him off. “No. Stay there and then think about how much you want to be _here_ , but also how much you’d like to be in your own body.”

That seems so simple, but Diego’s willing to try almost anything. He does as Five said, wanting to be where Five is so he can be back into his own body. There’s a strange fizzling, and Diego feels himself crashing into his own body, but then everything goes sideways for a moment and he blinks down at Five.

“You feeling okay?” Diego holds out his hand and Five ignores it as he stands up and brushes invisible dust off himself. “It’s fixed, right?”

“I believe so,” Five says. For the first time, Diego can hear the uncertainty in the words. Uncertainty sounds different in Five’s voice. “Well then. That was a fun little distraction, but we have bigger problems to be worrying about.”

“Yeah,” Diego says, “like stopping the president from getting assassinated.”

When Five glares at him, Diego thinks that yeah. Even if it’s still a little broken, they can fix it. That’s what they’re _supposed_ to do, right? Stop the apocalypse and save the whole world. They were trained for this. They’re the Umbrella Academy; they can do anything.

**Author's Note:**

> welcome to "kinktober gone wrong" where the points don't matter, nothing needs to be warned for, and everything is rated g. is that in the spirit of the challenge? probably not! but it's 2020 and you take joy where you can find it so i'll do whatever i want, thanks.


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